CIRCA 1720-30

The design of the legs of this table, with husk-enriched carved Venus-shells and falcon’s ring-tethered ankles above eagle’s claw-and-ball feet, is reminiscent of chair leg designs attributable to William Hallet (d. 1781). A set of eighteen chairs and two sofas in walnut with this leg pattern were executed at the fashionable Long Acre premises established in the early 1730s by Hallett and delivered in 1735 to Arthur Ingram, 6th Viscount Irwin as the 'Crimson Damask [Drawing Room] Chairs' for his Mayfair residence in Grosvenor Square (C. Gilbert, 'Newly Discovered Furniture by William Hallett', The Connoisseur, December 1964, pp. 224-225). The suite was later removed to Temple Newsam House, Yorkshire where it remained until 1922 when the contents were sold and it was bought by Frank Partridge; twelve chairs and a sofa from the suite were subsequently sold anonymously, Christie’s, London, 29 June 1978, lot 19.
A walnut card table attributed to Hallet, with related ring-tethered ankles and claw feet, was likely to have been commissioned for Shirburn Castle, Oxfordshire by George Parker, 2nd Earl of Macclesfield (d. 1764; sold by order of the executor of the late 7th Earl of Macclesfield, Christie’s, London, 25 November 2004, lot 81, £77,675 including premium).

Kasteel de Haar is one of the most significant monuments in the Netherlands. The house was restored on the occasion of the marriage in 1887 of Etienne van Zuylen to Hélène de Rothschild by the architect Cuyper. At de Haar, Cuyper employed the Gothic style, which was one of the revival styles of the 19th Century which he had used in the Rijksmuseum. An important source of inspiration was the oeuvre of the French contemporary architect Viollet-le-Duc, and more specifically the Château de Pierrefonds. Other influences are likely to have been drawn from the homes built by other members of the extended Rothschild family, such as the Renaissance-style château de Ferrières, near Paris, which was created by her grandfather, James de Rothschild. He commissioned Joseph Praxton, of Crystal Palace fame, to build this château after having seen his London cousin Meyer de Rothschild's Buckinghamshire castle Mentmore Towers, built slightly earlier by the same architect. Cuyper's desire for a coherent style soon brought him into conflict with Baron van Zuylen and his wife, who were not dogmatic followers of the Gothic style and who also favoured the fashionable eclectic and exotic tastes of the late 19th Century. Therefore, most of the furniture was in the late 19th century Edwardian style, although the van Zuylens opted for the neo-Louis XV and -Louis XVI styles when decorating their own bedrooms. An equally significant role was played by the celebrated Paris company F. Jansen who had already supplied furniture to the van Zuylens' Paris mansion on 86, Avenue du Bois (now Avenue Foch) and their Mediterranean residence in Nice.